Our sugar snap peas got super tall this year — Matt is about 6 feet tall for comparison. Granted, they are planted in raised beds that are about a foot off the ground. But still, these suckers got big! We just harvested close to a hundred of these and the snow peas. Going to be a delicious side for dinner tonight!

As I mentioned before, the spring weather has not been very “spring like.” It’s been colder than normal, and there have been nights of freezing temperatures and snow flurries. Not exactly ideal conditions for starting our spring crops, which I’ve always been told should be in the ground around the Ides of March.

Because of the wild weather swings, we tried to outsmart Mother Nature and pre-sprout our pea plants. I knew they wouldn’t germinate in the soil when it was that cold outside. And it worked wonderfully!

The basics are pretty easy: take the pea seeds (really just shriveled up peas) and place them in a damp paper towel. If you have two different kinds, I’d suggest labeling them. We just used permanent marker to write on the paper towels before soaking them.

Once the seeds are in place, place them in a covered container (we used a small pyrex bowl, but you could also use a plastic bag) and place them in a warm place. For us, that was the top of the refrigerator. Check on them after a couple of days and dampen the paper towels, if needed. Ours took about three or four days for all the peas to sprout. Once they’re sprouted, plant as soon as possible in the garden.

Ours are up and doing great, even though the day I planted them (March 23), it was spitting snow. But it seems winter has finally released its tenuous grasp on Cincinnati and the weather these past few days has been quite lovely!

Now our only challenge will be trying to figure out how to trellis the peas as they grow because I didn’t think that far ahead when I planted them in the garden.

Our peas are coming along nicely, but I’m not sure if we will get anything. The weather was a bit too unpredictable this spring, so they were planted late.

Some rotted in the ground or otherwise didn’t sprout. They’ve started putting out tendrils so we needed to give them support.

Instead of a trellis we used a wire fence that was in the garage. It’s not very tall but it works. I’m still afraid the weather will get too warm before we get any peas. Keeping my fingers crossed that at least a few pods form.

If they don’t, at least we found out last year that pea shoots are pretty tasty.